Inked Cardboard Rectangles in Infinite Space (Patreon)

Dear heroes,

Today's post isn't an update. It's two pieces of news.

First: Inked Cardboard Rectangles

With Saker Tarsos we're making cards using the art and the items and spells and extras and stuff in Seacat: Beyond the Black City (and the UVG as well, eventually). I'd wanted to do something like this for over a year, but I just couldn't get the creative mojo together to do it. Now, thanks to Saker, we have.

We're aiming to make a card a day and share them on social media, as well as in complete bundles here. We're also going to see: if it turns out to be fun and feasible, we'll even set them up as print on demand files on your favourite electrochemical platforms like DTRPG. I'll also share some exclusive cards here.

Sometimes the text of a spell is a little bit trimmed, but in general they are the same as in the Seacat book. Eventually, you'll be able to equip your characters entirely with cards - if that's what you like.

I'll be very honest, making the cards has three goals:

• ONE: We're going to sell the decks for money to pay rent and make a living.
• TWO: We're going to share individual cards to market stuff, including this here patreon.
• THREE: They're fun to make, so we hope to have fun making them.

I'll also share the affinity publisher templates for them once they're tweaked and polished, so anyone who wants to can also jam along to the rpg card experience.

Aren't they just the coolest?

Tarot sized.

The better to read the art.

And they really make the spells pop!

*

Second: Beyond the Black City

For some time I felt something was a little bit off, wasn't exactly gelling with the Seacat book. I knew what I wanted it to be, but the elevator pitch refused and refused to come together. Indeed, I felt a bit like the whole tantamount [sic] was coasting on the ideas and visuals of the UVG, without answering the question, "yeah, but why care?".

The detours, though nice (Our Friend the End, Longwinter) or stressful (Holy Mountain Shaker) didn't help. Eventually, I found the answer, what it should be: Beyond the Black City. Yes, it's a player handbook and rulebook, but it's intimately tied to the story of what happens once the hero goes through the magic door, once the hero passes beyond the void.

“We’re standing on the edge, it is dark, so dark on the edge of time…”
—Hawkwind, Standing on the Edge (1975).

But where does that leave Seacat? And Seacat breve? And SRDcat? Last week, while chatting with Saker Tarsos, I flat out asked him, "Señor Tarsos, what is Seacat to you?"

And without a pause he answered.

The Seacat rpg ecosystem.*

"Breathe, breathe in the air, don't be afraid to care."
—Pink Floyd, Breathe (1973).

This also started to tie in Beyond the Black City for me. Of course it's a rule book and has a lot of skills and items and traits and mutations and spells ... but more than that, it needs a carrying theme, a bass line. If the UVG is a psychedelic oregon trail, what is BtBC? I haven't got the pithy comparison quite yet, but in my mind its a stay at the restaurant at the end of the universe where the door opens and a new cosmos begins, rife with possibility and consequence.

To put it boldly, it's the seed of a new golden age. The end, then the beginning.

Like I said, I haven't got the verse down perfectly yet, but I'm hearing the bass line and, crucially, I'm feeling the motivation and drive and direction to write out the book again. Filling out a book with a hundred skills and traits and creatures and spells and art for them all was productive, but I often found myself wondering, "where goes this ship?"

Was this sense of drift, of doldrum, down to burnout and pandemic and life and death? Yes, of course. But now, it's starting to coalesce as well. I've got the starting door, the Black City in the UVG, if you will (and for those who read it, yes, it's a metaphor for ends and beginnings and ourouboros and the emptiness of the self and more)—and the direction: the void, the fast stars, the small worlds, back home again, the wormways and the journeys into inner and outer space.

A while back I hemmed and hawed about introducing scene and session frameworks and generators to the book, because I felt like they would be a lot of extra work without providing a lot of extra benefit.

"Luka," I cried to myself, "Don't add scenes, just finish the thing, it's ok without them."

But now, I actually see the use for them. How to really make Beyond the Black City psychedelic? Set it up with frameworks—like the caravan structure in the UVG—for spirit voyages, journeys into the mind's eye, gates, time travel, and building worlds through the consequences of the heroes' bumbling adventures through the voidstuff of the Given World.

And I know, I know. This feels super grandiose and overwrought and I kind of promise ... the book won't be 400 pages long. Really. Promise promise.

Stop laughing, Raziel.

Here's a draft of the updated book cover. It's not the final art - the effect isn't quite perfect for what I wanted - but ... it'll get there, it will!

I guess, this long letter post document is my way of saying: thank you for your support, thank you for joining in on this long journey. It couldn't have happened without you, I couldn't have done it, the game couldn't have been made, the words couldn't be written, the art couldn't be drawn.

Mercis.

And those who are new here, come on, quick, here's a seven-day wormhole to the discordium server: https://discord.gg/ycQQnF5w ;)

 "And you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again."
—Pink Floyd, Time (1973).

And Next Week

Going to post the next update of Seacat, including more spells, more items, and a new opening. And maybe some other things.

Till then: bone weekend, everyone, a very bonnie weekend.

—Luka